Robert Chafe spoke with Lanier Phillips and his family while researching the story for the play Oil and Water 0

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Lanier Phillips was a man few Canadians would have heard of about five years ago.

But it’s a name and a remarkable life story that Londoners now have a chance to learn about, with Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland’s production of Robert Chafe’s play Oil and Water now on stage at the Grand Theatre.

It’s the story of an African American sailor whose ship runs aground near the tiny Newfoundland town of St. Lawrence in February 1942, and whose rescue by townsfolk profoundly impacts his life.

Chafe first heard about Phillips in 1997 at an art gallery exhibition that featured a painting about the rescue of the American sailors.

“It’s a big story,” said Chafe, whose mining of Newfoundland’s history has earned him several awards and other honours, including being shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Drama for Tempting Providence — staged at the Grand in 2012 — and Butler’s Marsh in 2004 before winning in 2010 for Afterimage.

“It’s got a shipwreck, basically three stories in two different time periods of history, a very difficult, challenging piece to write.”

The play, developed with long-time collaborator and director Jillian Keiley, has received rave reviews across the country since it began touring more than three years ago.

Phillips, who died two years ago at the age of 88, was 18 and working as a mess attendant on the USS Truxtun when it and the USS Pollux, ran aground.

After his rescue, Phillips became the first African-American sonar technician in the U.S. Navy, and was active in the civil rights movement, inspired not only by Martin Luther King Jr., but his experience in St. Lawrence where he was treated as an equal by people who’d never seen a black man before.

More than 200 sailors died in the disaster, the remaining 186 pulled up sheer rock cliffs by residents, treated, then repatriated.

Chafe talked to Phillips and his family while researching the story, but never met him until 2012, three months before Phillips’ death. Phillips never saw the play.

Chafe accompanied the show to London to enable him to work on other projects, including the recruitment of actors for a new show in 2015 — an adaption of author Wayne Johnston’s best-selling book, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams — that tells the story of the late premier Joey Smallwood, who brought Newfoundland into confederation in 1949.

“Newfoundland has an unbelievable wealth of remarkable stories and I’m just beginning to write and, hopefully, there will be more coming,” he said.

joe.belanger@sunmedia.ca

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IF YOU GO

What: Oil and Water, a play by Robert Chafe, produced by Artistic Fraud theatre company of Newfoundland, presented by the Grand Theatre and directed by Jillian Keiley.

Where: The Grand Theatre, 471 Richmond St.

When: Until May 10.

Tickets: For ticket and show information visit the box office, by calling 519-672-8800 or toll free 1-800-265-1593, or online at grandtheatre.com

Phillips, played by Anderson Ryan Allen, middle, argues over the amount of room on boats with Bergeron, played by Clint Butler, left, as they cling to their own sinking ship with Langston, played by Mike Payette, in a scene from Oil and Water at The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario on Wednesday April 23, 2014. The production runs April 22 to May 10.
CRAIG GLOVER/The London Free Press/QMI Agency